


His Light, His Star

by yachterotter



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Family Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 12:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yachterotter/pseuds/yachterotter
Summary: The flight from London to Star City was only supposed to last nine hours, but as William ponders the fate of his little sister after their mother's frantic phone call, it felt like forever.A little speculation/flash-forwards fix-it fic for your holiday dose of Smoak-Queen family feels.





	His Light, His Star

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! I'm back with a one-shot (as it turns out, I really can't do multi-chapters) because I couldn't get this idea out of my head. 
> 
> Here's a little future AU (minus the bleak dystopian universe feels of the flash-forwards, so yeah, it's a fix-it fic) with a bit of speculation. Would love to hear your feedback and your thoughts after reading! 
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

William couldn't stop looking at his smartwatch.

The flight from London to Star City was only supposed to last nine hours, but it felt like forever.

He wasn't supposed to go home this year. In fact, he already scheduled a Skype call so he could call his parents on all nights of Hanukkah, on Christmas morning (in Star City time), and on New Year's Eve. (This new guy he's seeing, Ben, invited him and his friends over for the New Year and he didn't want to miss out). 

Yet, he changed his mind on the last minute.

Over the last minute (and in the past eight hours), he couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened to his baby sister.

He doesn't know what he'll do if she--

He remembers the night he first laid eyes on her. It was almost twenty years ago and the image is still as crystal clear as if it happened yesterday.

He remembers his stepmother trying her best to mask the pain as he held her hand tightly in labor, waiting for his father to return from a mission.

He remembers seeing his father arriving at the hospital room door, dressed in full leather, out of breath. He remembers being led out of the room by his Nana Donna the moment Felicity started to push. 

He wasn't around to hear his sister's first cry, but he remembers how he found her in his stepmother's arms a few hours later: small, fragile, beautiful.

His little Mia-bear.

At that he moment, he swore he would do anything for her. 

Which is proven by the fact that he went straight from an important meeting, straight to the airport, jumping on a plane after hearing the following words in their mom's frantic voice.

“It’s Mia. She's in the hospital.”

*

Despite their physical distance, they always made it a point to be as close to one another as they could, in one way or another.

On the rare occasion that their Aunt Thea would go home for the holidays from travelling, she'd always squeal, “Look, Ollie, Will and Mia are like a mini-us.” (Truth be told, her reaction to seeing William and his sister never changed, even as he turned thirty-three this year.)

When he was studying, he came home twice a year: during summers, holidays, and the occasional birthdays and thanksgiving.

While he loved being with his family, he can't help but admit that he started to fall in love with London. He loved the anonymity (not having everyone stare at you when you walk down the street was always a plus) and the freedom of being able to be whoever he wanted to be (not carrying the weight of being labeled as the Green Arrow's son).

While he loved his father and his stepmom, he wanted to find himself. Being away gave him that room to breathe. 

London was also where he met Josh, his first love. 

At the time, he was part of the reason he chose to stay in London even after he graduated. 

While he wanted to start his own tech company, his mom offered him the opportunity to run the Smoak Tech branch in the UK. He knew Felicity wanted him to do his own thing, so despite carrying the company name (and her being, technically, his boss) she gave him the freedom and the trust to run it the way he wanted.

With a good career, and a thriving love life, it was as if he had everything that he could ask for in London.

That didn't mean he didn't call every night to talk to his family. 

That's how their tradition started. Night video calls with his family. Felicity started it when he first landed in boarding school back in the day. (Back then, they used encrypted lines and codes).

It was difficult for him to leave his baby sister behind that Saturday morning, when she was just a few days old, but his parents promised that he won't miss an important moment of his baby sister's life and that they'll always keep him in the loop.

He basically saw Mia grow up from a baby to a toddler to the young adult she is now through the confines of a twelve inch screen. 

He remembers watching her twirl in her tutu for her first dancing class, remembers watching her attempt to swing a mini-bat for her first baseball game.

He remembers her gush about wanting to join the school's martial arts class. How she earned her different colored belts in Jiu-jitsu. 

He remembers her first prom night, how she looked so much like their mom with her hair in a high ponytail, wearing a gorgeous pantsuit that made her look taller than she actually was.

Thanks to that, they never felt emotionally distant from each other.

Mia was his light, no matter what happened in his life.

She was always his best sounding board when he went through difficult times.

She was the first to know about Josh. She was the first to tell him not to worry about how their parents would react. She was the first to hear about their break-up, when he called her that night in March. (“How dare he say you have commitment issues? You don't have commitment issues because you've always been committed to me,” he recalls her say in that sweet little voice of hers that she never seemed to grow out of, and he couldn't stop laughing then). 

She was the one who surprised him in the UK on Spring Break of that same year with the promise that they'd both eat Rocky Road ice cream for dinner (Mia did not inherit their mother's nut allergy, thank God.)

He knew she always had her to do just about anything for her as she would for him.

He knows he was never going to be alone ever again.

*

They hadn't always been on the same page, his sister and him. Mia had always been reckless and stubborn, he had always been careful and reserved. 

She wasn't also a particularly easy toddler to handle.

He recalls that night where their parents were forced to get out the house, one late summer night, to go into a mission and save the city.

He was seventeen then, almost a full fledged adult.

“Raisa will be here in a few minutes, but we need you to look after your sister for a bit before she gets here,” he remembers his mother say. He knows there was hesitation in her eyes, knows how difficult it was for her to leave, but he knew that she fought herself as she wanted William to feel that he was trusted.

In his youthful and naïve courage, he decided to take the responsibility. After all, there are babysitters for hire much younger than his age. 

Boy, was he wrong.

Turns out, he couldn't handle his baby sister on his own.

Mia, already stubborn at the tender age of three, would always go out of her playpen, run around the house, attempt to find the stash of cookies their father would hide from them.

All in a span of those thirty minutes before Raisa came in through the front door.

That wasn't the end of it.

He recalls catching a twelve year old Mia, trying to get out of the house at midnight through her bedroom window, only to find out she was going to out with her friends in secret because their father deemed it was too dangerous for her to go out that late at night.

He remembers the look on her sister's face when he stopped her from getting into her friends' car in front of the house, embarrassing her in front of all her friends.

When she screamed at him with words like, “it's not as if you're always here, anyway,” and, “you don't understand how suffocating our parents could be because you were always away.”

He remembers how those words triggered him to scream right back at her, to tell her that she didn't know what their parents had to go through in order for her to be safe, to live a better life than they once did. That she had the better life out of the two of them.

That she was never sent away for safety.

That she never lost her mother to a madman. 

That she never had to move from one place to another just because some villain who wanted to take over the world was after her life.

It was then when she saw the tears at her sister's eyes. Saw the pain that he caused for blaming her for her innocence. Saw that guilt in the blue of his father's as he finds him standing on the front door. Up to know, he still wonders how much he's heard.

It took him months to get back into his sister's graces.

He knew his sister could handle herself. She was trained with self defense at the age of seven. (She grew up to be one of Star City's best martial artists.) At the end of the day, he would do anything in his power for his sister not to go through the same things that she did. 

*

As the pilot announces that they're only a few minutes away from landing, he recalls the last time he felt the itch to jump on a plane home.

It was all because he heard his sister crying on the phone. 

She was sixteen, then. She found out some jerk was cheating on her with one of her closest friends.

Some friends her sister has.

“Promise me you won't tell mom and dad. You know how they could get when they find out about something like this.”

Oh, she knew all about their parents' vengeful ways.

Well, she probably hadn't considered the lengths William would go to avenge her baby sister's heart when he told him about it.

(He only cancelled all the kid's credit cards, hacked all of his social media accounts, and changed all of his ringtones to farting noises, but he wouldn't tell her about that). 

While he didn't actually jump on a plane then, he did spend the rest of the night talking to her, reminding her of how important she is. Just to make her smile.

“I have a match next week. I wish you were there to watch.”

His sister was a Jiu-jitsu black belter and he couldn't be more proud.

“I wish I were home, too. I'm sure mom would send me videos.”

With the mention of their mom, she sees the disappointment in her sister's eyes.

“She tells me that it's not easy for her having to watch me fight even though I keep telling her I can handle myself.”

“With everything that our family's been through, we're always going to be worried about you, Mia-bear.”

He watches her simply roll her eyes as he stifles a laugh.

He knows she knew what he meant.

*

As he opens the door to his sister's hospital room, his eyes go straight to the bed to see her form.

Just then, he's brought back to how he found her on their mom's arms on that very first night: small, fragile, beautiful. (Although, if you ask him now, he's pretty sure his baby sister's anything but fragile - she's still small, though).

There's just so much strength in that small body of hers.

“Mom?” he whispers as she finds their mom on the chair beside the bed, Mia's hands clasped in hers. 

“Where's dad?”

“Don't worry, he's with the SCPD right now, they just needed some help with the investigation. The attackers are already in custody thanks to your sister. He'll be back in a bit.”

(He knows what she meant when she opened with that. She knows he's worried his dad would go on full Arrow mode again because someone hurt his little girl.)

“How is she?” He can't stop himself from looking at his baby sister, lying on the hospital, tubes and machines around her, as if he's trying to assure himself that she's here, she's alive, she's okay, she's alright.

“She's out of the woods now. The doctors said she'll be fine. She lost a bit of blood, but she'll be fine. She was awake earlier, but I didn't tell her you'd be coming home. I wanted her to be surprised.”

He sighed, and their mom continued, “She was saving a woman from being attacked, Will. She was so brave. She just didn't anticipate that one of them was carrying a gun.”

Oh, Mia. Ever the brave one.

“If I hadn't been so frantic about hearing your sister getting shot, I would have told her how proud I am.”

As if on cue, they find Mia stirring, her eyes open to meet her brother's.

“Will? You're here.”

Hearing her tiny voice again, albeit a little raspy, he felt relief wash him over.

“Hey. I heard you got into a fight again.”

He tried to be as playful as he could, but he couldn't help his older sibling 'I'm worried about you' tone from slipping.

She attempted to chuckle as a response, but winced at the pain.

“I'm going to get you some coffee, Will. I'll be right back.”

He watched as his mom kissed his sister's temple and gave him some privacy to speak with his sister.

“Broken ribs and a bullet through the shoulder. Sounds like something dad would have gotten. At this point, I'm surprised you're not the leader of some underground fight club or a vigilante team.”

“I thought you had an important meeting today with some investors in London.”

“It's all right. That doesn't matter right now. All that matters to me is that you're fine and alive. Way to give your big brother a scare, by the way.”

“Well, you better get used to it. Wait 'til you hear what Zoe and I are planning.”

He's happy to see that shine in her eyes, but terrified to know what that meant. 

“Dad's furious, by the way,” she continues, “he had that frown on his face that even mom couldn't get rid off.”

“He’s not mad at you. He's proud. He's proud that you did the right thing, but you know how dad can get when any of us get into any kind of danger. Especially the ones that lead to us getting rushed to surgery.”

“Well, he's one to talk.”

Growing up with vigilante parents was never easy. Even when things got relatively easier for them, when Mia was growing up, she had her fair share of watching her dad get hurt, bleed, and had to stay in bed for weeks because of some knee injury. 

Right now, even at past fifty, her dad's still mostly helping out the SCPD. He still goes out in his leathers every now and then, even when the city now has their Aunt Emiko to cover for him at times.

“Don't you ever do that to us, again, Mia-bear.”

He reaches out for her hand.

“I had him! I just… miscalculated. It was a rookie and stupid mistake. Lesson learned. Also, don't you dare call me that again.”

At that, he smiles.

“William.”

They both turn their heads to find their dad standing outside their door, his arms open for a hug, their mom following suit, with the coffee she promised. 

“Welcome home, bud.”

His father ruffles his hair, as if he was twelve and not thirty-three.

“Looks like you found a match in our little Mia-bear, huh, Dad?”

“I'm right here and I'm nineteen, not little!” He hears her pipe.

His father then crossed room to give his daughter a kiss on the forehead. 

“I just spoke to the lady you saved, at the precinct. She told me what you did. I'm proud of you, Mia-bear.”

“Will you be staying for the holidays this year, Will? The first night of Hanukkah is only a few days from now,” he hears his mom ask.

Over the last few weeks, he was debating skipping going home for the holidays this year. The prototype for his new tech will be out in a month, and he needed everything to run smoothly.

Seeing his family together, though, he doesn't think he could leave Star City anytime soon (plus, he can work from the HQ, so it's not going to be that hard).

“I think I'll stick around for a while.”

For his parents. For his sister. For his light. For his star.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. I just wanted to put this idea out there before canon ruins anything. (In case Mia/Maya doesn't turn out to be their child after all). 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading!


End file.
